Coherent optical imaging techniques that analyze the interaction of waves (e.g., light waves) using principles of interferometry can provide a means of achieving near diffraction-limited performance in highly scattering and turbulent environments. These techniques can employ mixing techniques that provide a means for separating object photons, which may be in the form of ballistic or quasi-ballistic photons, from noise or diffuse photons. Diffuse photons do not meet phase (i.e., angle) requirements for coherent mixing conditions between object and reference beams used in a coherent optical imaging approach. Use of a conventional local-oscillator leverages only ballistic photons due to the stringent phase matching conditions that may be employed in optical coherence tomography. According to these conventional techniques, the received object photons must be within some small angular offset of the fixed reference beam. Having such a small angular offset is very restrictive and therefore significantly limits the number of object photons that qualify for use in the imaging analysis. Therefore, it would be advantageous to be able to increase the number of object photons that satisfy the angular requirements to improve imaging quality.